The man who brought the first ultrasound device to the UAE

Dr Essam El Shammaa first brought an ultrasound machine to the UAE in 1977, when it was still widely perceived to "magic".

Dr Essa El Shammaa brought the first every ultrasound to the UAE in 1977 at Abu Dhabi's Corniche Hospital. He recalls that people thought the machine was "magic". Mona Al Marzooqi / The National

ABU DHABI // Dr Essam El Shammaa brought the UAE’s first ultrasound equipment to Corniche Hospital in 1977. The technology was widely dismissed at the time as a medical curiosity.

“It was a huge, big thing,” says Dr Shammaa, director of medical imaging services at Corniche Hospital.

“We could use this machine to tell if it was a boy or a girl. It was a miracle, but they were upset for me to tell if it was a boy or girl, or whether there was something wrong with their baby.

“They thought it was magic.”

Now more than a million ultrasounds have since been conducted in the hospital – more than 15 per cent personally carried out by Dr Shammaa, he estimates.

The radiology expert first came to the UAE in 1976 when he was invited to provide a report on the scans.

Having spent a week in the emirate, Dr Shammaa fell in love with the country and, by the following August, came to work at Corniche Hospital at its former site. In 1984 he moved to the current site and is one of the few doctors remaining from that time.

Having practised medicine for more than 50 years, Dr Shammaa, a British expatriate, has spent most of his career at Corniche Hospital, where he has seen many difficult pregnancies.

Just weeks ago he saw an ultrasound showing conjoined twins.

“We saw two heads, two hearts, two arms each and two legs but one abdomen. We had to terminate the pregnancy,” he says.

One of the most memorable ultrasounds Dr Shammaa has seen showed six heartbeats.

An expectant mother was carrying what was thought to be the first sextuplets born in the capital city.

“I thought if there are six, maybe two or three will die,” he says.

Against all odds, the mother gave birth to six healthy babies – three boys and three girls – in December 2010. “The six survived, which was extremely rare,” he says.

A day after the press ran the story the couple were millionaires as sheikhs, residents and companies offered money, housing and baby care to help the financially struggling family, says Dr Shammaa.

Even 30 years ago, he felt the Corniche Hospital would become the landmark facility it is today.

“It has changed a lot but we are giving the best service in the Middle East in obstetrics and gynaecology and we have a good calibre of doctors,” he said.